


Fixed Points

by weezly14



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-10
Updated: 2013-09-10
Packaged: 2017-12-26 04:19:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/961476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weezly14/pseuds/weezly14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He avoids her room because he’s not sure it won’t cause him to do something stupid, something paradox-inducing, universe crushing, ridiculous."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fixed Points

 

            At first he avoids it. Like the plague. (He remembers the plague. Nasty bit of business. He hadn’t stayed long. Tried to help, but there’s only so much you can do, sometimes. Fixed points and all.)

            Nevertheless, he avoids it for a long time.

            (Well. Maybe not that long. But it feels long.)

            Funny thing about being a Time Lord is you feel timelines, don’t you? Feel time like others—like humans—don’t. Can’t.

            Still. He thinks he loses time, loses his grasp on things generally, after she—

            (It’s all a blur, really.)

            He avoids her room because he’s not sure it won’t cause him to do something stupid, something paradox-inducing, universe crushing, ridiculous.

            (He’s already burnt up a sun for her, anyway. There’s only so much—)

            (Fixed points and all.)

 

\---

 

            Martha’s sleeping. Humans. He’s never quite understood the appeal of sleep. Sure, beds are fun, but you don’t need to sleep to have a bed. Right? He’s got a bed, and he doesn’t sleep, it’s just a comfy place to sit and read or chat or—

            But humans need sleep, get all funny—or not funny—well, they get funny in a loopy sort of way, but then they get grumpy, and that’s pleasant for no one—without it. Usually he tinkers while his companions sleep. Or reads. Or wanders around. Really, it’s a boring time, for him, when they sleep. Except when—

            He’s tinkering, or trying to. Because Martha’s asleep. But he’s bored. And restless. And he misses—but he always—but it’s been—

            Time has passed. And he is all right. He’s always all right.

            He passes by her door, though. Not Martha’s. Hers.

            (But he just can’t bring himself to go inside.)

 

\---

 

            He’s not lonely.

            He’s been on his own before. Plenty of times. Martha’s gone, but not—not forever. Not like—it was time for her. He’s happy for her, for the life she’s going to have now. Really. He’s fine.

            (He gets as far as twisting the doorknob.)

            (He doesn’t open it, though.)

            (He can’t.)

 

\---

 

            “What about Rose?” Donna asks.

            “Still lost,” he says.

            (Still.)

            But she’s not lost, is she? He knows exactly where she is.

            (Doesn’t make it easier, though, does it?)

 

\---

 

            That night he opens the door. After Donna’s gone off, found a room, started unpacking. She came prepared. Martha hadn’t. Rose hadn’t. Not at first. She’d just—she’d just—

            But then. Then they went back and she still. She—

            ( _You’re stuck with me._ )

            And it’s exactly as she left it. Bed unmade. Clothes—bedside table—it even smells like—

            He steps in. Just a step. Looks around.

            (He can’t do this.)

            He leaves without looking back.

 

\---

 

            He had a daughter.

            Well. Technically. Just a bit of his DNA. He didn’t even do anything, just stuck his hand into a machine and suddenly there’s a grown person he’s apparently fathered.

            Not that he hasn’t—he’s been a father. Before. He’s had children. Grandchildren. They’re gone now. That’s how it goes, isn’t it?

            (Except there are certain people you’re not supposed to outlive. Certain people—)

            She’d been blonde. Jenny. His daughter. Well, only technically, but. She was blonde.

            And there’s no way—never could’ve—even if—

            But, some part of him, he looked at her, and he saw what maybe—what never could’ve actually—but—

            Would’ve been blonde, too. He always thought.

            This time he makes it to the bed. He sits down. For a moment he pretends it’s a normal day, that he’s waiting for her to finish getting ready so they can go off on their next adventure, but it’s not a normal day, and she’s not going to come out of her en suite and they won’t be having any more adventures, ever. So.

            (He thinks maybe he should just pack it all up. Tell the TARDIS to clear it all away, seal it off, make it disappear. She’s not coming back, there’s no use keeping her room for her. It only makes him want, and wanting’s dangerous.)

            He’s a Time Lord. That’s should mean something. All it means now is that he out lasts everyone and everything. They disappear and he remains.

            (This isn’t what he wanted.)

 

\---

 

            One more person. One more he’s watched—

            And he doesn’t even know her. This River Song. But she knew him. Knows him. Will—he will, one day. She will mean something to him.

            And _her_ door is mocking him. He passes it every day now, the TARDIS must be trying to torture him, and he sees it, he remembers—he still fucking remembers, he’s not forgetting, dammit. He doesn’t need to see that damn door to remember Rose Tyler because Rose Tyler is seared on his hearts and he hates her a little bit for that but mostly he still just—still—

            So he marches right in, no hesitation, walks in, closes the door behind him, with every intention of clearing it all away. Her clothes, her shoes, the knick knacks, everything, into a box and into a room he can lock away and forget, some sort of storage, a closet maybe, so he’s not constantly reminded, can be rid of this shrine to her, he’s tidying the bed and goes to sweep the contents of her bedside table into a box when—

            _Things we need to do more often_.

            Oh.

            And it’s just a—a page in a notebook. Open on the table, a pen with it, like she’d just jotted something down, like an idea had struck her and she wanted to—to write it before they went off, before she forgot, before the next adventure.

            (The last adventure.)

            He sits.

            (He doesn’t think he’d be able to stand much longer.)

 

\---

 

            It had started as a joke. They’d been eating ice cream—well, not ice cream, exactly, they weren’t on earth, but a sort of equivalent. Just sitting, eating together. Nothing fancy, nothing life-threatening. And she’d said, we should do this more often. And he’d said, yeah. And she’d claimed that they wouldn’t, though, would they, because he’d forget.

            “Well, why don’t you make a list, then, of things we should do—”

            “—need to do.”

            “Fine, _need_ to do, more often.”

            And she’d grinned at him, and he’d grinned at her, and before they went back to the TARDIS he got her a notebook.

 

\---

           

It started out with little things.

            Get more sleep (her). (“I’m human, I need my sleep!”) (“But Rose, that’s boring!”) (“You can manage a couple of hours without me.”) (“But it’s _boring._ ”)

            Eat more jam (him). (“No you don’t, you eat too much as it is.”) (Rose Tyler, one can never have too much jam.”)

            Get more tea (both).

            Visit Mum (her). (Crossed out by him.) (Added again by her.)

 

\---

 

            He took her to a new planet. (Again.)

            “How long are you going to stay with me?” he’d asked.

            “Forever,” she’d replied.

            She’d smiled at him. He’d smiled at her.

            “I have something, to add to the list.”

            “Yeah?”

            “Yeah.”

            “What is it?”

            He’d kissed her, then.

            (That was added when they got back to the TARDIS. Along with a few other things.)

 

\---            

 

He lost her three days later.

            (“Lost” her.)

 

\---

 

            He didn’t realize it, but he’d forgotten about the list. Their list.

            He doesn’t need to look at it. He’s seen them all, wrote some of them, even. This will be the first thing locked away. _Things we need to do more often that we will never get to do again. Things that are mocking me. Things that make me want. Things—_

            But something stops him from closing the book. The pen. She’s written—she’d added to it, before—there’s a new one. One he hasn’t read.

            And part of him is shouting at himself not to, don’t read it, don’t, it’ll only—it can only make it worse, don’t—

            _Say I love you._

            He slams the book shut, and slams the door behind him.

            (He can’t do this.)

 

\---

 

            He never told her, and it’s all he can think about. But he did lo—of _course_ he—but he never—but _she_ did. She did, she said, on the beach—on that fucking beach, she—

            But she knew, right? She had to know. She wouldn’t’ve—she wrote it because it needed to happen—and more—it needed to be said, but she knew he did, right? She must’ve—

            And he needs to stop. He needs to let go this line of thinking, needs to—needs a new fucking list, a _things I need to stop thinking, things I need to let go of, things I should not under any circumstances do_ —things like paradox-inducing, universe collapsing, stupid, ridiculous—

            Fixed points in time.

            There are fixed points that he can’t—that he cannot—

            Fixed points in time.

            (But there is no point in time where he told her he loved her.)

 

\---

 

            “Bad Wolf,” Donna says.

            _Rose._

 

\---

 

            Things we need to do more often:

            Hug.

            (Check.)

 

\---

 

            It always goes back to the beach, doesn’t it? Back to that fucking beach. Because she’s not lost anymore, but he is. Other him, who is still him, all of him, but new him, him as he was, him before her, him—

            But not.

            And fixed points in time and paradoxes? Universe collapsing, stupid ridiculous things?

            There are two hims, and they cannot exist in the same universe, and she cannot live forever, and he never said he loved her and—

            He can’t.

            (Still.)

            “How was that sentence going to end?”

            “Does it need saying?”

            (Yes.)

            “And you, Doctor? What was the end of that sentence?”

            And he’s him, they’re both the Doctor, same memories, same person, same feelings, same everything, except he’s not, he’s him and not him, he is and he isn’t, because he’s leaning in, and _Rose Tyler_ and things we need to do more often and—

            ( _I love you._ )

            So it’s him she kisses, him she stays with, him she gets to do this with. This thing and all the things and everything, forever, for her one human life that she promised to _him_ that he could never spend with her, that _he_ can. That is the him she kisses. That is the him she gets. Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth. Rose Tyler, who once was lost but now has found him.

            He doesn’t say goodbye.

            (He can’t.)

 

\---

 

            There are fixed points in time that he cannot tamper with. Fixed points he cannot change.

            (There is no point in time where _he_ told her he loved her.)

            (Still.)           


End file.
